The pets all have pretty consistent personalities. Zeeke is the dominant, possessive male. Zoe is the submissive, over-reactive, anxious little girl. Merlin is a happy-go-lucky, playful, cuddly cat. But there are some situations where things are totally unexpected.

Take, for instance, the vacuum cleaner. Zeeke HATES the vacuum cleaner. In fact, he’s rather terrified of it. He totally freaks out every time it gets turned on (or at this point, when we even pull it out). If given half the chance he will bark insanely at it, then attack the hose… and he’s very very jumpy. He hates that thing and he thinks it’s going to come eat him in his sleep. I vacuumed the bedroom the other day while he was crated, and Zeeke was flinging himself at the crate sides, digging frantically at the crate floor, and trying desperately to rip into the thing.

We have a shop vac, by the way… that’s what we use. It’s noisy. So Zoe runs and hides right? WRONG! Zoe isn’t very affected by it, which is the weirdest damn thing. She freaks out at new boxes in the house, but she’s okay with a shop vac?? Well I mean she’s not “okay” with it - she doesn’t want it to get too close to her. Yet it doesn’t send her diving for cover, either. She just cautiously moves to the other side of the room. And the weirdest thing yet is that she gets totally ticked off with Zeeke when he flips out… SHE attacks HIM whenever he goes for the vacuum cleaner. Explain that one?! She’ll grab him by the cheek, growling. I don’t understand it one little bit, but she definitely does NOT like it when he flips out at it.

The cats don’t really seem bothered by the vacuum. They’ll jump out of the way, but that’s about it. They don’t flee the room either. Pretty easy-going cats.

::

Merlin’s oddness came out when he got sick. He’s Merlin, the easy-going, tote-me-around huggable dude. So I figured pilling him would be easy, right? HA. Apparently he HATES to be held down. He squirmed and scratched and drove me insane. This also translates to cutting his nails, I’ve discovered. He HATES having his paw held like that. He’s suspicious when you first touch his paw, he gives a little tug, and when he can’t get free he starts doing that cat-fish thing where they flop around in three directions at once. But with claws. Sharp claws, since I can’t seem to cut them. I finally got tired of the show and wrapped him in a towel like a burrito. He sure didn’t like that, but at least his claws got clipped.

And Jo, who was once my total punk, picking fights with cats and people and just being obstinate? Cutting his nails is no problem.

Well at least I’m learning.

Today Den stayed late at work and I decided to drive up to see him and bring him dinner. I also decided to bring a dog along with me.

I very briefly - VERY briefly - considered bringing Zeeke. And then I laughed at myself and locked him in his crate. Zeeke in a vehicle is bad enough as it is. Zeeke in a car, is worse. Zeeke in a new place when people are trying to work? That just doesn’t go together.

So I brought Zoe of course.

We get there and as soon as we get in the building I drop her leash, she knows where to go. So she slunk around the corner towards Den’s office. I am not really sure what she thinks may possibly happen to her in a deserted hallway, but obviously whatever it is really scares her.

I gave Den his dinner, popped open my laptop, and we sat there for about an hour and a half, working on “stuff” on our respective computers. Zoe layed on the floor and relaxed a little. (Just a little. But with her that is significant.) After a long period of silence I turned around. “This is what she does all day,” I said, gesturing to the dog laying on the floor directly behind the chair I was sitting in.

“Just like Zeeke does, right?” Den replied with a snort. We looked at each other, then laughed. Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what Zeeke does all day.

Zoe is so easy. Really, she is. I don’t think this baby that’s on the way will shake her up too much. She’s not going to be too thrilled about a new creature in the house that she cannot decipher - unless she places it in the same category as “cat,” in which case she’ll think it’s really awesome and can she play with it now? But most likely she’s going to skitter around and shoot me nervous “What the hell is that thing??” looks and take months to get used to the fact that it’s not leaving. But in terms of what she needs from me? Easy. She’ll happily lay at my feet when I’m nursing. She’ll follow me from room to room as I rock the baby to sleep. She’ll bark frantically at me if I am 2 seconds late serving her dinner, but I can deal with that.

Funny how she ended up being the lowest maintainance pet we have. Jo isn’t too bad either, he just wants food and some cuddles in the morning. The other two… well the other two are nuts. We won’t talk about them.